Merry holidays and happy Christmas

By PHILIP GAILEY
St. Petersburg Times
Here we go again. Christmas, which is supposed to be about peace on Earth and good will toward men, is anything but these days. It has become another front in the culture wars.
The American Civil Liberties Union for years has waged a legal campaign to strip the public square of the creche and other religious symbols of the season.
Now, to hear the Rev. Jerry Falwell and conservative commentators tell it, the forces of political correctness are trying to erase the very word "Christmas" from our holiday vocabulary. If you say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," or if you call a Christmas tree a holiday tree, you are, in their view, lower down than the Grinch who stole Christmas (at least he returned it).
Don't waste Falwell's time telling him about religious diversity and inclusiveness. And never mind that this holiday season includes not only Christmas, but Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. He knows what's really going on here and he is raising an army of lawyers and ministers to defend Christmas. He intends to defend it in our schools, in the public square and in shopping malls -- anywhere where the word "holiday" is substituted for "Christmas." The way he sees it, calling Christmas a holiday is like calling a menorah a candlestick. He has a point.
Christmas skirmishes have been reported from Boston to Sacramento, Calif., from Washington, D.C., to small towns in the South. It's an emotional issue for some people, including Donnie Hatt, a Nova Scotia logger who for years has been donating Boston's official tree. He said if he had known that his gift would be called a "holiday tree" in a city news release, he would have thrown the tree into a wood chipper. Liberty Counsel, which is affiliated with Falwell, threatened to sue the city. To calm the uproar, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino issued this statement: "I consider this tree to be a Christmas tree."
In Washington, meanwhile, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., sent a letter to the architect of the U.S. Capitol suggesting that the "Holiday Tree" on the West Lawn of the Capitol be renamed the "Capitol Christmas Tree," as it was called until the late 1990s.
Legal firepower
According to the Chicago Tribune, Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defense Fund have almost 1,600 lawyer-volunteers ready to wage what they call a "Friend or Foe Campaign." That's a lot of legal firepower in search of a target, so let me be among the first to extend to these lawyers this heartfelt greeting: Merry Christmas. I'm not looking for trouble. Lord knows I have my hands full trying to cope with normal stresses of the Christmas season without having to explain why I am shopping at a store that displays a "holiday tree" or advertises a "holiday sale."
I think I understand why some people are upset by what they see as an attempt to make Christmas a secular holiday. But Christmas Day is what it is -- a celebration of the birth of Jesus more than 2,000 years ago -- and no one can change that, not even the ACLU. Each of us is free to observe the day -- and season -- in whatever way we choose. We can say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" or "Bah Humbug." We can put a creche on our front lawn and a holiday wreath on our front door. We can have a Christmas tree or a holiday tree or neither. And we are free to avoid stores that use the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas." In other words, it's a free country.
The real spirit of Christmas lies in our hearts and not in the tinsel and pageantry and commercialism.
You don't even have to be Christian to get into the spirit of the season. Surely everyone can agree that anything that brings out generosity in people and appeals for peace on Earth and good will toward each other is not a bad thing in a world so lacking in both.
Instead of battling over the symbols of Christmas, maybe we should think about how to live out its true meaning. A "Merry Christmas" greeting means a lot more if it is accompanied by donations of food, clothing and toys to the needy among us.
I'm not going to let Falwell or the ACLU spoil my Christmas with their boycotts and lawsuits. I plan to do what I've always done, which is to leave the tree decoration, the Christmas cards and most of the shopping to my wife. Meanwhile, here's my season's greeting to the culture warriors out there: Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fight.
X Philip Gailey is editor of editorials of the St. Petersburg Times. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service,